Parag Khanna

March 26, 2007

For all the bluster about the United States' democratization policy, military action remains America's principal weapon for confronting Islamist extremism. In many parts of the world, U.S. forces have teamed with the security and intelligence services of Muslim states to "take the fight to the enemy" and root out common foes. Muslim regimes from North Africa to Asia had been feeling the heat well before September 11 from Islamist groups that had labeled them apostate.